How do I integrate Rally Congress with my web site?

There are two general integration approaches: 1. simply embedding forms into your site pages with a snippet of code that we provide, or 2. a "design match" where we match the design of an existing site and host the full page on our servers. The design match path can be {subdomain}.rallycongress.com or a subdomain/full domain of your choosing.

What call-to-action topics are acceptable?

Rally Congress is a non-partisan tool for people and organizations who care about a wide variety of issues and causes. We help citizens and organizations across the United States connect with Congress, participate in the legislative process, and build communities around different causes. Our role is to provide the technology, not the policy analysis or the messaging.

Will I have access to my supporters' contact information?

Your organization owns and controls all supporter data collected through your Rally Congress forms. When your account is set up, you'll receive a log-in password and other account information. You can log-in to your account control panel anytime. The control panel allows you to search and view the people taking action. You can also export your supporter database in real-time to an Excel-compatible spreadsheet.

How does Rally Congress handle surges in traffic?

Our platform is designed to handle major spikes in web traffic. Our clients regularly hit massive email lists and run national advertising campaigns that point to their Rally Congress pages. An important benefit of using Rally Congress is reliable and scalable hosting -- the last thing you want is your calls-to-action to go offline just as they are getting widespread attention. Let our team handle that traffic surge for you.

Can we target state legislators as well?

Yes, state-level legislative lookup and delivery is included in Rally Congress.

I've heard about web forms, CAPTCHAs, and other barriers to email delivery on Capitol Hill. How do you deliver emails to these offices?

Rally Congress ensures your online calls-to-action have real impact by delivering your activists' messages to their elected officials. Email, in the traditional sense, is no longer used to receive constituent communications in Congress. The Congressional email lists floating around the web don't work. In fact, all but a couple members of Congress now use public web forms to receive constituent communications. Rally Congress integrates with each of those specific web forms, and we consult regularly with Congressional staff and their vendors to make the transfer of data as smooth as possible. Our own staff and system monitor the delivery process daily and will re-submit messages that were not received by a Congressional web form.

In almost every case, this works seamlessly. However, some Congressional offices have additional layers of validation to their web site email forms, such as an image CAPTCHA. Congressional offices aren't trying to block validated constituent email from trusted vendors like Rally Congress; they are worried about spam, robots, and non-constituent email. We work with Congressional staff directly to make sure your emails get delivered. In a small handful of cases, we deliver your constituent messages by fax at no additional charge.

We monitor Congressional web sites daily, so we're able to adapt quickly to any changes.